Malaysia is one of Asia's biggest employers of foreign labour. But recently, cases of deaths, abuse and forced labour have come to light. What is going on? Who is protecting these migrant workers?
Indonesian Academy of Sciences’ Southeast Asia relations observer, Alfitra Salam, said the current arrangement with regards to the Indonesian workers in Malaysia was a private sector initiative.
<P>"All this while it has been in the hands of the
private sector, which makes it difficult to protect them if they have problems
during their employment in Malaysia," he said here today.</P><P>He said that
the large numbers of illegal Indonesian workers in Malaysia also compounded the
problem as these immigrants’ interests were legally not entitled to protection
by the Indonesian embassy in Malaysia.</P><P>But for the sake of humanity, the
embassy made it its responsibility to protect all Indonesian nationals in Malaysia,
he said.</P><P>Alfitra said the embassy also might be facing exhaustion in having
to solve the various problems caused by the illegal Indonesian workers.</P><P>He
said their large numbers made it difficult to compile statistics on them as well
as to extend immediate help when they were in trouble with the law.</P><P>The
Malaysian government should update the embassy on the location and status of Indonesian
workers in the country, he said.</P><P>"Most of the time the local authorities
do not inform the embassy resulting in delays to efforts to help visiting workers
in trouble," he was quoted as saying by the Antara news agency.</P><P>Alfitra
added that the embassy also needed to be more proactive in getting the statistics
on Indonesian workers in Malaysia so that it could respond better when needed.
— BERNAMA</P><P><I>Source: http://www.bernama.com.my/bernama/v3/news.php?id=247523</I>
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